Mordecai

  “What?!” I stared at him in horror.

  “This body has passions I had forgotten about,” said my ancestor. “There are no women here. Are you worried about losing?”

  I shook my head, “I would never agree to something like that.”

  “Fine,” he responded. “You don’t have to agree. But after I beat you into a senseless pulp, I’ll take what I want anyway.” Then he leered at Penny.

  “No.” I started to turn away.

  “You have no choice, boy,” said Tyrion menacingly. “Try to leave, and I’ll kill you. Your only option is to fight me.”

  “We’re supposed to be allies,” I protested.

  “That ended the moment your woman marked me with her blade,” said Tyrion. “The taste of blood has awakened my old passions.” As he said the words his fingers brought some of the blood from his chest to his lips.

  Angry and scared simultaneously, I spat on the ground, “You’re sick. I’m not agreeing to this.”

  Tyrion looked more excited than ever. “Don’t worry. I won’t kill you, even if you lose. You can have what’s left of her after I’m done.”

  The world was vibrating around me. My skin felt as though it was about to catch fire. A voice in the back of my mind was whispering to me, kill him. Quickly, before he is ready.

  “We’ll need some rules, I suppose,” continued Tyrion, talking aloud. “No metamagic, and no fire. Let’s stick to simple force attacks.”

  “Metamagic?”

  “That’s what I call our special ability. The thing that makes us archmages, a magic that rewrites reality, that can change magic itself—metamagic,” explained my ancestor.

  For a primitive savage I had to admit he had come up with a sensible term for the power that archmages wield. That worried me almost as much as the primal animalistic nature that Tyrion so perfectly exhibited. Despite all appearances, the man wasn’t just a beast, he was also fiendishly clever. Could I beat him? We were evenly matched in power, but somehow, I had always assumed I was smarter. Now I doubted that assumption.

  “I’m not playing this game,” I told him.

  “Try to walk away from here, and you will face not just me, but the krytek as well.” He moved closer, until we were almost nose to nose, and I could smell the sweat and dirt from his previous exertions. “You don’t want that fight. Even the man who bested the gods couldn’t win against those odds. This is your only chance. Show me your spirit, godslayer. Fight me.”

  Kill him now! The voice in my head was insistent. He’s unshielded, only inches away. Drive a force-lance through his heart before he can react, and this will be over. That would be the smart move, but I was angry. I wanted to beat this animal at his own game. My power shifted subtly as I mentally prepared to fight.

  Tyrion’s aythar flared around him and he took a step back. “That’s it. I can see it in your eyes!”

  Could he read me so easily? I pushed my doubts aside and asked him a question, “What about enchantments?”

  Tyrion glanced down at his arms, at the tattoos that covered them along with the rest of his skin. “I guess that wouldn’t be fair, would it?” he replied.

  “For you,” I shot back, tapping the pouch at my waist. “I have enough surprises in here to more than make up for whatever advantage you think that ugly scribbling all over your body gives you.”

  “Very well,” he said, nodding. “No enchantments. We will use only what we can conjure in the moment, and no fire.”

  “Mort…”

  That was Penny. Calling to me with fear written on her face. “It will be alright,” I told her.

  “Father, please! Don’t do this.” That came from Lynaralla, showing more emotion on her face in that moment than I think I had ever seen her exhibit. She looked positively torn.

  Were those tears in her eyes? I was fairly certain I had never seen the She’Har girl cry before. Perhaps her time with us hadn’t been a waste. Penny met my eyes, and for a second I could read her thoughts. Not through magic, but simply because we knew each other so well. There was confidence in her, and she was telling me it would be alright. No matter what happened, we would manage.

  She took Lynaralla by the arm and led the girl away, her maternal instinct having taken the lead once more. “Don’t cry. Mort will be alright. He’s never let us down.”

  The silver haired girl looked up at her with swollen eyes, “It’s already too late. I’ve seen it.”

  I didn’t hear her reply to my wife. My focus was firmly on the man in front of me. “How do we decide the winner?”

  “The first one who can’t fight or begs to surrender loses,” he answered, his voice low and throaty. Then he glanced around, studying the edge of the clearing. “Or the first to leave the battlefield. The tree line can serve as our boundary.”

  “When do we start?”

  Tyrion grinned, “Whenever you want.”

  He hadn’t shielded himself yet, which struck me as odd. Is he that confident, or is it part of some strategy? I stared at him silently. As opponents went he was unlike anyone, or anything I had ever fought before. Most of the mages I knew were significantly weaker, other than my own children. Worse, most of my battles had been against foes who weren’t human at all, who had outclassed me in terms of power by several orders of magnitude. In those fights I had only won through either trickery, preparation, or the use of what Tyrion had named ‘metamagic’.

  The man in front of me was blazing with aythar, like some strange star shining with hatred and malice. I had seen worse, he wasn’t one of the gods after all, but in this case my options were limited. Just force, eh? Very well, how about this? I sent a small probing strike toward him to see how he intended to react.

  Tyrion didn’t move, and my force lance tore a small hole through the skin in his side. I hadn’t been aiming to kill, and I was surprised he hadn’t at least attempted to shield himself or avoid the blow. Blood trickled from the wound.

  “Aren’t you going to defend yourself?” I asked.

  He sneered, “When you decide to start attacking. I’m running out of patience. You remind me of Gabriel. Do you want to die?”

  The mention of the name surprised me. Gabriel had been one of his sons, two thousand years ago, one of the first to die. Gabriel’s death had come at the hands of his sister, when he refused to fight her. He was the only one of Tyrion’s children to die without ever compromising his principles. He had died for his kindness, refusing to accept the cruelty the world had tried to force upon him.

  “I would rather be compared to him than you,” I said finally.

  “Except you aren’t like him, not really,” continued Tyrion. “You’ve done things, evil things that he would never have managed. How do you live with the contradiction?” He began walking toward me.

  I didn’t want him getting too close. I knew that for certain. At a distance I could deal with him, up close—I wasn’t sure. I attacked again, this time sending a sledgehammer of force at his midsection. He had to defend himself from this one, otherwise he’d find himself flat on his back with a chest full of shattered ribs.

  One hand rose, flicking my attack away, deflecting it to one side. It almost looked as though he did it barehanded, but I detected his use of aythar. For the barest of seconds, he had shielded his hand and used his aythar like a buckler to turn my attack aside. “Better,” he announced, then he stepped into me and punched into my shield with his fist.

  The attack came so quickly and from so close I couldn’t avoid it. It struck my shield and sent me flying backward. Tumbling, I reached out to the air and steadied myself, landing gracefully ten feet away. My head was pounding, he had almost cracked my shield.

  A broken shield would mean feedback, and that would be a definite defeat. Tyrion’s refusal to protect himself was starting to make sense. Against a weaker opponent a shield meant safety, and against the gods they had been necessary just to keep my ability to move. In this situation, it was a weakness.

  Dammi
t, I know how he thinks, how he fights. I lived his memories! And yet the knowledge didn’t seem to help. Tyrion was a killer, through and through. There was no room for anything else in him. But what was I? A father, a husband, a protector of the weak. I had never fought by choice, only when it was forced on me.

  Two more attacks came at me, one high and one low. Pulling at the air, I slipped to one side and returned the favor, sending a powerful blow back at him. Somehow it caught him off-guard, and I had put almost everything into it that I could. Unable to dodge, Tyrion crossed his arms and channeled his aythar to stop the attack. It smashed into him and sent him twenty feet backward. The man attempted to roll with it, but he wound up sprawled in the dirt.

  Had I done it? It couldn’t be that easy.

  I started to approach him, but he sprang up from the ground almost too quickly for my eyes to follow. He was channeling his power through his muscles, lending himself enhanced strength and speed, the same trick he had used to match Penny’s power earlier. Moving like a jungle cat infused with lightning, he darted to one side and then leapt toward me, his fists tucked in close to his body, ready to strike.

  Theoretically what he was doing was something any mage was capable of, but in practice it was not so simple. People like Cyhan, Dorian, or my wife, spent days to weeks learning to cope with their enhanced strength. It was entirely possible to kill or damage oneself if the power wasn’t managed properly. As a wizard I had never felt the need to do such a thing, other than to boost my endurance or stamina on occasion. If something needed to be lifted, I used my power directly. If speed was required, I flew. If something needed to be destroyed it was far easier to do it at a distance.

  Obviously, Tyrion had different opinions on the matter.

  But then, I also had talents that no sane mage would consider learning. Touching the air again, I lifted myself and spun over his head, dropping some twenty feet behind him before he managed to turn himself around. Unleashing a wide scythe-like wave of force at his midsection, I struck again, hard.

  Snarling like an animal, he blocked the attack, but I could tell it had cost him. Even so, he looked at me with wild eyes.

  He’s enjoying this, I realized.

  Tyrion raced toward me, attacking as he came, and the world began to blur as I responded in kind, meeting each lance of power as it came. At a distance I could match him, attacking and defending in turn, all at a speed I had never considered before. Conscious thought wasn’t possible any longer, I gave myself over to the more primitive side of my brain. Whenever Tyrion closed, I took to the air, deftly avoiding him and putting more distance between us.

  I felt his power reach out, stirring the air and tearing at the soil. He was attempting to create a whirlwind, to fill the air with a confusing blend of roaring wind and painful grit. I countered his attempt, stopping him cold while continuing my onslaught. Obscuring the field would only play to his attempts to get close and finish me off. At range I was more than his match. His body was fast, but it couldn’t compare with my mobility when I took to the air.

  For an observer without magesight our battle was largely invisible. From Penny’s perspective we probably appeared to be motionless much of the time, even as we exchanged rapid-fire attacks and counterattacks, punctuated by occasional movement as we shifted locations, constantly seeking an advantage.

  The ground vanished as my opponent tried to surprise me by ripping the ground apart beneath me, but I didn’t fall. Hovering, I seized the earth as it came free and redirected the loose chunks of dirt and rock. His surprise became my assault as a half-ton of sand and gravel tore through the air at him. Leaping to the side, Tyrion avoided the barrage, only to land in another pit I created even as he had started to move.

  Tyrion shot skyward, launching himself on powerful legs the moment his feet touched the bottom—only to meet my earthen attack as it swung back around. Rock and sand blasted his unshielded body, leaving a hundred bloody wounds on him and scouring the skin completely away in a few spots.

  Stunned, he fell back, rolling before springing to his feet once more, but I gave him no chance to recover. His counterattack was poorly aimed which made it easy to sidestep as I slammed a dozen hammer-like blows of force into his torso and legs.

  I had him now, but how far did I have to go to win? His defense was ragged. I had struck him so many times his body had to be screaming with pain. He continued to block some of my attacks, but my focus was perfect, while he was struggling after taking so many hits. Would I have to break his bones?

  My attention was so firmly upon him that I almost missed the tree sweeping toward me from behind. Somehow, he had ripped it free from the edge of the clearing without me noticing. Using the air, I slipped up and to the right, narrowly avoiding what would have probably been a lethal hit. Is he trying to kill me?

  I pummeled him with my power. He blocked most of the strikes, but a few got through. There was no way he could continue to withstand so much abuse.

  The fight went on, and I could feel myself tiring, but it was worse for him. Desperate to put an end to it, I struck harder, and then harder still. Why won’t he just stay down?! And then I made a mistake. In my fatigue I dodged one blow only to put myself solidly in front of another, a hammer-blow that sent me reeling.

  Pain and fear shot through me. Initiative and momentum were everything. Lose those and the fight would be over. My ancestor would show no reserve or mercy if he got the upper hand. Panicked, I let my rage boil over. The counter-stroke I sent back at him had too much power behind it. If it hit it would shatter him, there was enough power in it to destroy a castle gate.

  Tyrion saw it coming, but rather than dodge or defend himself, he stood still, his face lighting up with a bloody smile. Everything happened in less than a second. Realizing he was about to die, I tried to stop my own attack. In practice it was similar to what one might feel if you swung a sledge at a rock and tried to pull it back in mid-swing.

  With a sledge you’d probably pull the muscles in your back, but with aythar—the result was feedback. Tired from our long fight, it felt as though my mind was torn apart; agony, cold and black, ripped through me, consuming everything. And it was all of my own doing.

  I had been flying a couple of feet in the air when it happened, but the pain was so intense I didn’t even feel my body hit the ground. I must’ve lost consciousness for a second, for when I opened my eyes he was there. The world went red as his fist met my face.

  More blows followed. Tyrion wasn’t using his power anymore, but then he didn’t need to. I was completely helpless. It would take a week or more to recover from what I had done to myself. I felt a crack as the bones in my cheek collapsed under his fist. Mercifully he shifted to my body then.

  Or perhaps not so mercifully I realized, as my ribs began to break. He had to be using his power now, no fist could survive a punch hard enough to shatter ribs. I heard screaming, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t me—I couldn’t breathe.

  “Broken bones hurt, don’t they?” said Tyrion crooned in my ear.

  He was pressing something sharp into my belly. Was that a knife? No, it’s a blade of pure aythar. He’s going to kill me.

  “The problem with feedback,” he continued, “is that you can’t heal those broken bones. Mine are already fixed. And all those cuts you gave me, they’re closed as well. But you can’t fix anything. You’re helpless. You might as well be dead.” The blade sliced through my skin, cutting through flesh and muscle. I would have screamed if I could.

  “Right now, you’re probably wondering if I’m going to kill you, and trust me, I want to. But I won’t. Family is important to me.” Tyrion stopped then, laughing harshly as though he had told a joke. “No, today is a lesson. You fought like a fool. I want you to remember this, remember the pain, the fear.

  “There at the end, you seemed like you had finally learned, but then, when you had won, you fucked yourself. Next time, start there and don’t hold back.” He stood and spat out a bloody ba
ll of phlegm on the ground beside me. “Assuming you recover enough for there to ever be a next time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a prize to collect.” His eyes traveled sideways to light on Penny. “When I’m done with her, your wife will thank you for losing.”

  And then he walked away.

  For a second, relief washed over me, and then his words registered through the agony clouding my thoughts. I was beginning to pull in short painful breaths, but air was no longer my main concern. Turning my head, I tried to yell after him, but my voice was gone. One eye was swollen shut, but the other was still able to focus on his retreating form.

  Penny stood at the edge of the clearing, sword in her hand and thunder in her eyes. It was an expression I wish I could say I had never seen before, but she and I had been through some pretty extreme events over the years. Still, I had never wanted to see her suffer like that. She glared at the bare skinned monster approaching her as though she hoped to kill him with the daggers in her eyes.

  When Tyrion was almost to her she leapt forward, gripping his shoulder with one hand and pressing the tip of her sword against his chest. “Heal him!” she hissed through gritted teeth. Blood seeped slowly from where the point touched him. “Heal him now, or I’ll push this blade through your damned heart!”

  “Go ahead,” he replied, meeting her gaze evenly. “Death is the closest thing to me. Press that enchanted steel through! Let me taste your fury.” For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

  And then he began to move, pressing himself forward. Penny’s sword cut deeper until it began to cut against his ribs. Her arm was shaking, not from weakness, but fear.

  Quick as a snake he struck the point of the blade aside, cutting a bloody groove across his chest, then he caught her by the back of the head, his fingers clenching into her hair. “That’s right,” he said softly. “You can’t do it. Is it because you fear he will die without my aid, or because you desire what is to come?”